


A Fish Story

by cheshirejin



Series: Madrona_Project [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirejin/pseuds/cheshirejin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> </p><p>Title:  A Fish Story<br/>Author: cheshirejin<br/>World: Isle of Mer<br/>Main Characters:  Tara<br/>Borrow: Yes, I borrowed a chunk of the Isle of Mer area from Vexed, all characters in this fic are free to use in  the Madrona community.</p><p>Summary:  The residents of the village often talked of guardians that watched over the waters around their home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fish Story

Summary:  The residents of the village often talked of guardians that watched over the waters around their home.  
   
   
The murky green water lapped lazily against the muddy bank. This far into the estuary there was little to worry about save being bitten all over by insects during the late spring and early summer. The very time that was best for harvesting the duckweed and cress to dry for fodder and food. The slightly salty conditions they grew in made it a valuable commodity that was traded to the farmers of inland Madrona as a supplement for their animals.  
   
Tara was standing waist deep in the brackish water, with mud squelching between her toes, as she deftly raked the floating green lace onto her flatboat.  She noticed a rare plant for the area, something that had a large floating tuber with air channels that was considered sacred to the water gods. Smiling at her good fortune, she raked the plant over to herself, removing one of the tubers and releasing it to survive and hopefully reproduce. Taking the tuber, she hid it in her cargo so it was not in easy sight and finished filling her boat. Once she reached her capacity, she poled the small boat back to her property with the handle of her rake. There she spread the most of her haul out thinly on fine netting to dry in the sun.  
   
She took a bit of the cress and the tuber to her house, where she cleaned them in fresh water. Setting the cress aside for her dinner, she cut the tuber into thin crosswise slices and placed them into a covered basket. Afterwards, she changed from her smelly work clothes into a simple shift that would be suitable for wearing in town   
   
Tara left the house with her basket and walked a fair distance down a faint dirt track to where the estuary gave way to a small bay. The docks that dotted it were never deserted, but at the moment they weren’t horribly busy either. There were a few girls hawking shellfish handcrafts and such to the crew of a foreign ship that was moored there, and a few fishermen cleaning their catch at the public water trough.  The latter was a good sign; the gods of the deep were known to favor the fishermen of the village. She walked out to the end of the longest dock, smiling and greeting a few people she knew on the way. Once at the end, she paused a moment to firmly set a prayer in her mind, it wouldn’t do to send an offering to the gods without having the proper prayer to go with it.  
   
She leaned over and reached into the basket, taking the first slice of the offering, and tossed it out into the water, saying prayer of the ancients “Beannachd Dia dhuit.”  Watching the offering slowly sink into the rolling swells under the dock, she waited what seemed like an appropriate time, before tossing the next slice in and repeating the prayer.  
   
She had worked her way through a quarter of the offering, when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning slightly, she saw some of the foreign sailors standing a respectful distance away on the docks, watching her with interest.  She acknowledged their presence with a brief nod in their general direction, not wanting to break the ceremony and lose her chance at having her prayers answered. She tossed another thin slice of the tuber into the water and repeated the prayer.   
   
The attention from the strangers also drew the attention of some of her neighbors and predictably a few approached her, intent on acquiring a few prayers for themselves.  
   
“Tara, please I will pay you well if you give just one prayer, “Liam Sullivan said, approaching swiftly with a desperate look in his eye.  
   
“Who would I be praying for with all of these if not Morgan and the baby?” she asked dryly. “Save your money in case Morgan needs medicine, Liam,” she added, passing him three disks of the root.  After all, she had grown up with his wife and they were like sisters, of course the majority of her prayers to the gods would be for her health and that of the baby she was fighting to keep at the moment. Morgan had two months to go before she could safely deliver the child and had almost delivered it early three days ago. She had seen the appearance of the prayer fruit as a sign that there was hope and her prayers for her friend might be answered.  
   
“Bless you,” Liam said as he turned and flung the first disk as far out into the bay as he could. “Go mbíodh biseach ort gan mhoill,” he whispered.  
   
Broderic stood at the top of the gangplank on the Bountiful Lady. He had sailed on her for almost a year now, but this was their first time visiting Yawhops Bay. It was the sleepy fishing village they were delivering a load of goods to that brought them there rather than the less than deluxe docking facilities. At least they wouldn’t be leaving with a full load of the smelly vegetable fodder these folks were well known for. He would rather have a hold full of smoked, dried fish to deal with than that rancid stuff.  He watched as a couple of the locals tossed something into the water and then sat there, looking out over the waves, expectantly.   
   
One of them pointed at the water. The waves seemed to darken before his eyes, before he realized there was something enormous moving in deep down under the waves toward the docks.  Further examination led him to see that there were several large somethings moving beneath the grayish waters near the docks. Something tickled the back of his mind about the locals having a legend about some sort of devil or guardian fish and now he was fairly sure he was seeing them in the flesh. Even accounting for water magnification these creatures had to be near the size of a small whale.  He wasn’t the only one to notice either, some of his fellow sailors were watching with avid interest.  
   
Broderic made his way off the ship and onto the dock, intent on asking the locals about the large fish, when he saw Pierre lowering a dory into the water.  It didn’t take too long to figure out what he was planning, especially since he was loading some of his drinking buddies from the ship and a harpoon into the boat as it slowly lowered toward the water. “Wait!” he hollered, racing back up onto the deck, if this was a sacred animal to the locals it might not be a great idea to go fishing for one on their first day in port. By the time he made it back onto the ship he was too late, his crewmates were already rowing away from the ship toward their prey.  
   
Tara stood on the dock, thrilled to see the dark shape of the guardian gods coming in to accept her offering. It was a sure sign that their village was still under the protection of the gods of the sea.  She noticed a boat rowing purposefully toward the large dark shapes that milled around down under the surface, and it didn’t take long to figure out their intent. She tried to shout and get their attention to no avail; they were too far out to hear her over the wind and waves. She knew there was no preventing what was about to happen. She turned and ran into town, shouting to the locals, “The fish gods, someone is about to kill a fish god! Raise the warning flags!  Clear the bay!”  
   
The panic that ensued was just barely controlled chaos. The women hawking their shellfish on the docks packed up and moved far inland. Every local fisherman with a boat rushed to the docks and unmoored their boats, heading out into the bay at top speed.  
   
Pierre was going to get himself a big one. These were very large fish, and they would be eating well for a week or more off of the smoked meat. He would be a Hero to the crew and maybe even impress some of the local ladies with his prowess and daring, after hauling in something so large. It was really very simple; he hefted the large harpoon and threw it hard into the back of one of the monsters that had come near the surface of the water.   
   
Tara rushed onboard the stranger’s ship, panicked, she told them they had to leave it, even a large vessel could be broken up if the guardians were aroused, and the blood of one of their own was sure to do that.  
   
“You have to leave the ship!” she hollered at a group of men at the top of the gangplank. “The little guardian is bleeding, it will draw the attention of the sea gods. There isn’t going to be a safe place on the bay soon, get off!”  
   
At first, she had trouble getting the urgency across to them, but as the local ships set sail and left the bay they began to take her words more seriously.  
   
“Wait, there are bigger creatures out there than the ones I saw?” one of the strangers asked to which Tara emphatically nodded. He ran to his captain and words were exchanged. Then things started to happen; the captain shouted the two words sure to clear the boat in the fastest time possible. “Shore Leave.”  
   
The fish hadn’t even put up much of a fight; it just lay there, imitating a log in the surf, while he and five of his best men hauled it in alongside their boat. Things soon started to get strange. Pierre looked up to see every ship, houseboat, or fishing vessel in the bay heading toward them.  He wondered if they were coming out to congratulate him on his catch, but soon he could see the grim faces of the men and women piloting their vessels. Maybe he had done something wrong? He had been so set on catching one of these marvelously large fish that he hadn’t stopped to think about it, if they were so easy to haul in, why weren’t the locals out getting a few of them too? Now the locals were closing in on him at full speed, and he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have to stand and fight them all at once.  
   
Nervously, he cast about, looking for a weapon in case he needed one, and coming up with only a few sturdy oars and some rope. Then, to his confusion, every one of those vessels went right by him and on out of the bay into the open ocean beyond. He and his crew stood there, watching them go, perplexed. Soon, looking back, he realized the Bountiful Lady was the only ship at the docks and the dory they were on was the only thing still floating in the bay. He got a sinking feeling that something was horribly wrong just before something bumped the dory from underneath. He looked over the edge to see a shadow that dwarfed the huge fish, he had just harpooned, glide under the boat just under the surface of the water.

A massive deep green back broke the surface, its dorsal area plated in large flat scales, just yards from the boat, before diving down again. Soon the entire bay was rolling and frothing with the movement of massive fish converging on their boat and the harpooned fish still tied to it. Pierre didn’t bother to scream or pray to their gods as his men did when the boat capsized and he was pulled into the churning waters, choosing to face his fate with grim acceptance.  
   
“Tara, come quickly, its Morgan she is asking for you,” Liam said as soon as she was on the dock again. The look on his face told her it wasn’t good so she hurried with him to her friend’s side.  
   
Morgan was in labor, there was no doubt about it, and the baby was going to be delivered early. The grim look on the midwife’s face told the whole story when Tara entered the room.  She hurried to the head of the bed and took one of Morgan’s hands. “I prayed for the baby and the water gods accepted the offering,” she said hopefully, wanting to offer whatever comfort she could.   
   
“I know. Everything will be alright,” Morgan said as she tried to catch her breath between contractions. “I had a vision, my baby will be blessed by the gods, you’ll see.”  
   
It was a long hard labor, and sometime in the early morning hours the child was born, healthy and crying. At that moment, the waters of the bay settled and pieces large and small of the dory and the foreign ship were left as flotsam on the now calm waters. Legends told of how the guardian gods had always protected the village by not allowing enemies to enter the bay, and this seemed to prove the legends true.  
   
In the early morning light Tara sat, talking with her best friend, who was happily nursing her newborn son. “What was it like, the vision from the water god?” she asked.  
   
Morgan said, “In my vision I had met a beautiful mermaid, the mother of one of the fish gods, grieving over a fish-child who was dying. I made a pact with the goddess to allow the spirit of that godling to share the body of my child, who might not survive the night.”  Both mother and child of course did survive, and true to her word the child was marked as one blessed by the water gods, he had fine scales down his legs and armor- like plates down his back.   
   
   
   
  



End file.
